Tuesday, August 28, 2012

INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD CHAPTERMy apologies for not updating this sooner, dear readers, but I have been distracted by the many personal and professional demands upon my time. The small-minded idiots at work, my so-called "managers," refuse to give me a moments peace, and insist on hounding me with a never-ending list of tedious chores they expect me to complete. Haven't I done enough for them? And then there are all the other things I have to do, like clean my kitchen, and . . . no, no I won't lie to you dear readers. I will save the make-believe for my tale-telling. The truth is, I have not written Chapter 3 because I have been distraught.
What has brought this on? Nothing less than betrayal. The betrayal of someone I thought I could count on, someone I thought was a true friend.
You may recall that, back in Chapter 1, my friend Laura was assisting me, pushing my fictioneering to ever-greater heights. Chapter 2 started off well but then, toward the end, everything went wrong. Laura became suddenly critical of me. I responded in kind and, I'm sorry to say, hurtful emails were exchanged. "Too sensitive," she says. "Unable to take criticism." As if! I have spent a lot of time in deep personal reflection, and have eaten a great deal of ice cream, and I can now say with confidence that I don't need her help anyway, as you will see, when I write this, the third chapter, all by myself, with no help at all.MORE OF THE STORY, WRITTEN ENTIRELY BY ME, WITH NO HELP AT ALLBella, who was a 3.0 GPA, and could have done better if she applied herself, cried herself to sleep. She couldn't understand why no one loved her, why they insisted on criticizing her, and then, when she responded to their criticism, on calling her too sensitive. That night she woke up in the middle of the night, groggy at first, but then she remembered the hurtful words of a "friend," and cried herself to sleep again.
She dreamed of rejection. And bacon.
When Bella got to school the next morning everyone was talking about the upcoming football game against Riverdale. Even the new students, like Willow and Hermione, were taking part in the conversation. Bella saw them talking to some of the other new girls who had recently moved to town, who were named Veronica Mars and Maeby Funke.
"Have you seen Riverdale's quarterback, Moose?" Veronica Mars asked. "That guy is unstoppable."
Bella avoided them all. She was in no mood to talk. She did not want to talk to anyone, but still it bothered her when no one tried to talk to her. Why didn't they want to talk to her? What was wrong with her, anyway?
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I can do this all by myself, with no help at all."
After home room--in room 316, near the cafeteria--she went to the bathroom, and cried until she threw up.
In a stall in the bathroom, the mysterious figure who had been watching Bella earlier--I mentioned that that would be an important plot point, remember--continued to watch her.
Meanwhile, in faraway Transylvania, which is somewhere in Europe, it was a dark and stormy night. In the middle of the fog-enshrouded moors, in a spooky old castle, the Vampire High Council came to order.
On a throne on an elevated dais sat a dark be-caped figure: the King of the Vampires, Dracula. At his side sat Marceline, the Vampire Queen.

"Tell me, lackey," Dracula said to his lackey, in a low menacing tone, "How goes our plan to enslave the land known as 'America'?"
"The plan proceeds apace, sir," said the lackey, who was sweating, because he was frightened. "We have spies there now."
"What of our son?" Marceline asked. There were two holes in her neck. "What of my dear boy Edward?"
"Edward is in Fork City," the lackey said.
"Fork City?" Dracula said, frowning. "Where the hell is that?"
"I believe it's somewhere near Riverdale, sir."
"Riverdale?" Marceline asked. "I hear they have a pretty bad-ass quarterback."

At that very moment Bella was in the bathroom, cleaning the vomit off her face. She heard a noise. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move. She whirled around, and saw that her friend Laura had walked into the bathroom.
"Oh," Bella said, "It's you."
The previous day Bella and Laura had gotten into an argument, when Laura had accused Bella of plagiarism, when Bella was just making a creative use of Wikipedia, which is, after all, a public resource.
"Listen, I was thinking," Laura said. "I was entirely wrong. I never should have criticized you. And I'm really sorry for those things I said in those emails, about how you're too sensitive and you can't take criticism. Really, I'm the one who should be criticized, not you. Never you."
Bella smiled. "It's okay," she said generously. "I forgive you, Laura." They hugged.
Now that they were both happy, and friends again forever, they walked out . . .
No. No, I'm sorry, I can't do this. I thought it would be therapeutic to, you know, work out some of my feelings in this story, and I think my emotional turmoil has been a good match, and has led to some exciting characterization for Bella, but this, this scene is a lie. Laura and I have not hugged and made up . . . I said some hurtful things in that email exchange, and Laura is still angry at me.
LAURA! I'M SORRY, LAURA! CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?!?!?! I CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday, August 10, 2012

While I have not yet started a bidding war
among publishers (yet!) I am pleased by the positive response my first chapter
has received. Clearly there are still connoisseurs of fiction out there who
know quality when they see it. And to those who did not enjoy my first chapter,
let me simply say this: you are objectively wrong.

As I said, there is not yet a bidding war, but
I have already gotten several promising emails from a publisher called “Lulu.”
I don’t want to take the first offer that comes along, of course, so I am
currently playing hard to get.

Before we get on with the story, I would like
to once again thank my faithful assistant and good friend, Laura, for her
feedback. And I suppose I should mention that Katniss Everdeen and her love
interests were created by Suzanne Collins and are, of course, used here without
her permission. Also there will probably be other characters too, but we’ll
disclaim those later. On to the story!

THE STORY

Katniss Everdeen sat in a dark room in the
future and thought angry, confused thoughts. She remembered back to the day of
The Lottery, when she boldly stood up and shouted out, “I WILL TAKE MY SISTER’S
PLACE IN THE HUNGER GAMES!!!” And she had done so, and now she was fighting to
overthrow the evil Capitol. But that was not what made her angry and confused.

Katniss was in love with a boy named Peeta but
she was also in love with another boy named Gale. How could she work this out?
Could she maybe date both of them without the other one knowing? If, say, she
went out to eat with Peeta, but then slipped off to meet Gale at the ice cream
shop next door? Then excused herself to use the bathroom, and went back to
Peeta? Or did she even need to keep it a secret? How open minded were Peeta and
Gale, anyway? Would they freak out if she proposed a non-traditional
relationship?

(Team
Peeta all the way! –Laura)

“But if I married both of them,” she thought, “whose last name would I take?”
The question made her angry. She wanted to shoot something with an arrow, which
was not just an idle thought, because she had a bow and arrow in her hand. She
looked around for something to shoot.

The door opened. A man walked in. “My name is
John Connor,” he said. “Come with me. We are going to put you in a time machine
and send you back in time so you can destroy the Capitol before it even comes
to be.”

“Do I get to shoot people with arrows?” Katniss asked.

“Probably.”

She shrugged. “Okay, let’s go.”

Meanwhile, back in the past, Bella walked down
the street in the rain. She felt sad.

(Not
to criticize, but traditionally, fan fiction writers tend to be a bit more . .
. florid? You know, describing things more vividly. Maybe give that a try. –Laura)

Meanwhile, five hundred years, six months,
seventeen days, four hours, and twelve minutes prior to Katniss’s offhanded
acquiescence to the enigmatic John Connor’s shocking, out-of-nowhere offer to
send her spiraling back into the depths of history itself so that she might cut
out the root of the malignant weed she knew only as “The Capitol,” in order to
stop its unholy growth before it might even have begun, the tormented
melancholy youth known as “Bella,” whose name meant “beautiful” but who felt
like nothing more than a hideous splattered piece of roadkill, a squirrel on
the road of life, who tried to cross without looking, and whose intestines had
now been ground into paste by a passing Volvo, trudged down the sidewalk in
Fork City, a sidewalk that had only recently been built thanks to action taken
by the Municipal Development Committee, which passed in a 12-6 vote, as rain
rushed into her like a barrage of shots from a million water guns.

Bella shuddered under the unending barrage,
even as she reflected on how perfectly it suited her mood. The rain was cold,
bitter, and wet, just like her heart. The wailing of the wind echoed the wild
wailing in her soul.

(Bingo!
–Laura)

(You’re
like a muse, Laura, pushing me to heights I had not even previously imagined I
could reach. –J.L.)

(Awwww,
thanks! –Laura)

“Raaaarrrggghhhh!” Bella cried out, trying to
give vent to the demons that toiled and labored on their infernal machinery, to
unknown ends, inside of her. Then she realized she was yelling like a crazy
person, and shut her mouth.

From a distance, a mysterious stranger watched
her every move. The rain poured down on the mysterious stranger, as it pours
down on saint and sinner alike, but the mysterious stranger did not seem to
care. The mysterious stranger did not even have an umbrella, yet the mysterious
stranger kept standing there, in the rain, standing perfectly straight, as if
the rain were not even there. Bella could not see the mysterious stranger, and
did not know he—or she?!—was there. I only mention it so that you, the reader,
will know, and can feel the delightful anticipation of waiting for the mystery
of this mysterious stranger to be revealed.

Bella tried to distract herself from herself
from her misery. Almost as a reflex, her thoughts flitted to an old and
comfortingly familiar topic. She thought of Pope Pius V, who excommunicated Elizabeth
I of England for schism and persecutions of English Catholics during
her reign. He also arranged the formation of the Holy League, an
alliance of Catholic states. Although outnumbered, the Holy League famously
defeated the Ottoman Empire, which had threatened to overrun Europe, at
the Battle of Lepanto. This victory Pius V attributed to the
intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and instituted the feast of Our
Lady of Victory.

(Um,
did you just copy and paste that from Wikipedia? –Laura)

(Wikipedia
is a free public resource. Why not take advantage of it? –J.L.)

(Well,
sure, the information is publically available, but you can’t just copy the text
and pass it off as your own. That’s plagiarism. –Laura)

(Wait
a minute, now I’m confused. You’re my muse—you’re supposed to be musing me, not
confusing me. Weren’t you the one telling me that fan-fiction was a way to
overthrow the old hierarchies, the outdated concepts of “ownership,” and
liberate ourselves as writers? And now you’re telling me that Wikipedia is
somehow off limits? –J.L.)

(I’ve
told you this before, J.L. The point of fan fiction is that it allows us as
fans to express our love for our favorite characters. Like, for instance, my
favorite character on Battlestar Galactica [2004-2009 series] was Margaret Edmondson,
callsign “Racetrack.” There were a lot of characters on the show and,
unfortunately, Racetrack did not get the screen time she deserved, although she
did make several key discoveries and without her everyone would have died. But
in my Racetrack fan fiction (plug! plug!) I can make up for that oversight on
the part of the show’s producers, and give Racetrack the spotlight she
deserves. While I respect the established canon of the series, I’m interested
in crafting my own tales, and I would never copy someone else’s words and use
them without permission. Does that make sense? –Laura)

Bella thought back bitterly to the events of
the day. Mainly she thought about her friend Laura—her so-called friend Laura—who
had stabbed her in the back. Laura had so acted supportive when Bella had
started a new endeavor, but was secretly jealous of Bella’s talent. Who wanted
to read about Racetrack, anyway? Racetrack was barely even a supporting
character.

She slammed the door as she walked into her
house. Her father was, as usual, passed out on the kitchen floor in a pool of
his own vomit. As she flipped him over, checked to see if he was breathing, and
wiped the vomit off his face, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My friend Laura recently
told me about a woman who wrote some Twilight
fan-fiction, changed the name of the characters, got her fan-fiction published
as a book, and made millions of dollars. Though I have long been interested in
the craft of fictioneering, I had never previously considered attempting a
fan-fiction. I am, however, very interested in millions of dollars. I was
immediately inspired to begin writing a fan-fiction so great that every
publisher would want it. I imagine that, by the time I am finished, there will
be a bidding war, and then it will just be a simple matter of going back and
changing the names.

I may not be an expert on fan-fiction, but what does expertise matter when you
have passion? That’s the whole point,
isn’t it? Taking the reins of fiction away from the artistic elites who think
they somehow “own” the characters they create. But since I am undereducated on
the subject I have brought in Laura to help out. Laura is an expert, having
previously read AND written fan-fiction. Since this is a work in progress,
Laura’s comments will appear periodically throughout the text.

(Hi! –Laura)

According to Laura,
fan-fictions usually begin with disclaimers. First I should mention that, while
I will be changing the names of these characters at a later date, at which
point they, and any associated movie rights, will belong to me, I am starting
out with the names of existing characters. Bella and her friends and family were
created by Stephenie Meyer for her Twilight
series and are used here, while not with her permission, in a spirit of authorial
camaraderie and not in any way that should prompt a lawsuit. Besides I will, as
mentioned previously, be changing all the names eventually. There are other
characters, too, who were technically “created” by other authors, but we will
see how they flourish and blossom under my care.

A word of warning—this
tale is not for the faint of heart. This first chapter features the words “asshole”
and “lascivious,” as well as a hint of lesbianism. Don’t worry, there will be
more lesbianism in later chapters, as Laura tells me that sort of thing is
essential.

Now that the disclaimer is
out of the way I take great pride in presenting to you, without further ado, the
fan-fiction to end all fan-fictions . . . FIVE HUNDRED SHADES OF GREAT.

THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY

Bella was sad, angry, and
bored as she stormed into her bedroom. A high school student, Bella threw her
book bag onto her bed, which was in her bedroom. Her cell phone fell out, which
made her yelp in horror, since teenagers are all so obsessed with their cell
phones.

“I hope my cell phone is alright,” she said, picking it up and cradling it. Her
walls were decorated with pictures of boys from boy bands. She was a normal, if
klutzy, teenager, little aware of the shocking revelations that would soon be
coming her way.

Her phone rang. She gasped in shock, and dropped it, then picked it up again. The screen said the caller was “Unknown.” “Who could it be?” Bella asked, her voice trembling. With shaking hands she pressed a button, accepting the call, and brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she whispered.

“Hello? Who is this?” an unfamiliar voice said.

“B . . . Bella,” she gasped.

“Sorry, wrong number.” There was a click, and the voice on the other
end disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Now what? Since her
father, who was a police officer, was off at work, she had the house to
herself, yet since she was new to town she had no friends. What to do? It
looked like another evening would be devoted to her favorite hobby: getting on
Wikipedia and reading about the lives of the popes.

Halfway through the entry
on Pope Urban VIII, Bella fell asleep, and she did not awaken until her alarm
clock went off at 6:15.

“Dang it!” she blurted
out. “Now I have to go to school!” She showered and dressed, in a black t-shirt
and black pants, and went downstairs for breakfast. There was one Low-Fat Eggo
Waffle left in the box. Her father had drunk all the orange juice in the fridge,
so she had to make some more from concentrate. She pulled the plastic tube out
of the freezer and carefully pulled off the

(Do you think maybe we could skip ahead to something more interesting? –Laura)

(This is a little thing called “establishing character,” Laura. But you’re
right, I’m trying to cater to the ADD generation, so I’ll go ahead and give ‘em
what they want. –J.L.)

As Bella walked down the
hallway at Fork City High, she saw a girl she had not seen there before. The
girl was short, with short red hair and a big smile. When the mystery girl saw
Bella staring at her, she walked in Bella’s direction. Bella trembled in
terror.

The new girl stuck out her
hand and said, “Hi, I’m Willow Rosenberg.” Bellow shook her hand. Willow
continued, “I just transferred here from Sunnydale High.” She leaned in close
and, in a conspiratorial whisper, said, “I’m a lesbian.”

Willow laughed. “Oh, you
poor naïve thing! Don’t worry, though, I’ll teach you a thing or two.” She gave
Bella a lascivious wink, but Bella did not think of it that way, since she did
not know what the word “lascivious” meant.

Then someone further on
down the hall caught Willow’s attention. “Who is that?” she asked.

A girl with curly hair
walked up to them. “Hi,” she said. “My name’s Hermione. I just transferred here
from a school in England.”

“That’s a sexy accent,”
Willow said.

(I dunno, J.L.,
I know you’re planning on changing the names later, but I’d be careful. J.K.
Rowling is pretty sensitive about her characters, and she’s richer than God. –Laura)

(Good to know. Thanks for the heads-up! –J.L.)

“What I was saying, before
you interrupted me,” Hermione said, “is that I’m from New England. I’m as
American as you guys are. And there are lots of girls named Hermione, right?”

“Yes,” said Willow. “And a
witch. And . . . you know.” She winked again.

“A witch?” Hermione said,
surprised. “I, uh, used to know someone who was a witch.” Her tone suggested
something more, that she had a hidden mystery she was not revealing, but Bella
did not notice that. She was too busy freaking out.

“I, I’m sorry, Willow,”
Bella stammered, “I can’t talk to you . . . my dad would kill me!” She thought
back to the time had staggered home blind stinking drunk from the Klan rally,
ranting for hours about the “Zionist Conspiracy” that ran the world banks. “Kike
bastards!” he had shouted through the tears, and hurled an empty bottle of Mad
Dog that missed Bella’s head by inches.

(No, seriously, you haven’t read Twilight, have
you? –Laura)

(Twilight is a cultural phenomenon. You don’t have to
“read” it to “get” it. Besides, I’ve seen the trailers for all the movies. –J.L.)

“Your dad sounds like a
real asshole,” Hermione said, her arms crossed in front of her Boston Celtics
sweatshirt.

“You don’t . . . you don’t
understand!” Bella gasped, and she turned and ran. She hurled herself through
the bathroom door, then into a stall, then crumpled into a fetal position on
the floor. The tears flowed out of her like a raging monsoon, the kind that
only came during monsoon season. The other kids at school didn’t understand her—no
one understood her! If only she could meet someone, that special someone, that
magical special sparkling brooding someone, who would take her away from all
this pain and confusion.

At that moment, hundreds
of years in the future, a serious meeting was taking place in District 13,
somewhere near the region formerly known as Appalachia. “It has become clear,”
the leader of the meeting said, “that our enemies are too powerful. We cannot
overthrow the Capitol.”

“Outrageous!” someone else
shouted. “Would you have us give up the fight?”

“No,” the leader said. “I have a better idea. What if I told you we could send
an agent back in time . . . AND PREVENT THE CAPITOL FROM EVER EXISITING?!!”

Blog Archive

About Me

J.L. has long dreamed pursuing fictioneering as a way to make a living but, unfortunately, is stuck working with small-minded pedants who don't appreciate the power of dreams. Once this blog takes off, though, and the money starts rolling in, you can bet that things are going to change.